


Kit's in the Cradle

by Sarc



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-18 13:22:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7316923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarc/pseuds/Sarc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nick reunites with his father.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nick tells Judy about his dad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 1 was slightly re-worked. Some grammatical corrections and sentence restructuring.
> 
> The casino sequence has been moved to a later chapter. Chapter 2 will continue as if it has yet to happen.

It's 7:00pm on a wednesday in the summer. The sun is setting and painting all of Sahara Square's sand dunes a bright shining gold. The sky, a light blue canvas shaded with clouds of pink, purple, and orange. Shadows of two-story buildings expand twice their height across the parks and roads of Zootopia, kept hot and dry by the heat emitting from the asphalt streets.

On those streets, a disgruntled zebra was being given a speeding ticket by Officer Hopps while her partner, Wilde, lay up against their police cruiser watching if their speeder would try anything funny. He didn't however, and he drives off grumbling some swears under his breath. As Judy is wrapping up and walking back to the cruiser, she notices Nick staring blankly at a park across the road. She looks over and sees nothing out of the ordinary, just a bunch of mammals enjoying the end of a beautiful day.

He was looking at one group in particular, a family of tigers who crossed the road about ten minutes earlier in front of where the zebra was pulled over. They're running around and playing together in the soft sand and desert grass under the acacias.

"Speeding and texting. If we didn't nail that moron, he would've hit that dad and his kids", he said in a very monotone voice.

She looked over at them to see what Nick was talking about. "Yeah, but at least we were here to catch him right?"

"Yeah" he said sternly with an exasperated sigh, heading back to the passenger's side of the cruiser.

Confused at his off tone, she watched the tigers play a little more and gets back into the driver's seat. She looks over at him resting his head on his arm against the door, a gloomy look on his face as he stares off into the park.

"Anything on your mind? You look a little down."

"Me? No. Just tired is all. It's been a long hot day and I'd like to get home" he said in a lighter tone than usual.

She turned the police lights off, started the car, and drove off to finish their run. "Anything you want to talk about? You really had your eyes on that family." He sat there silently, not making a peep. "A shot in the dark here, but while I met your mom a couple months ago, do you keep in touch with your dad?"

She continued, "You don't have to now, but I'm still here if you ever need to talk to someone."

He didn't shift his expression, but he did start talking. "I haven't heard from my dad in a long time, Carrots. I'd say around...give or take around almost 20 years?"

"20 years? Wow...I can't even imagine."

"Yeah. He left after I turned thirteen and I’ve never heard from him since. He was the one who originally taught me how to hustle. I also picked up swindling, scamming, and even learned some gambling tricks from watching him. Still could never figure out how he stole things from right under people's noses though."

"Stole things?" She said with a bit of a surprise. "Like a thief?"

"Thief is a strong word, Carrots. I prefer to use the term 'professional pick-pocket'. He could've probably taken that badge right out from under you if you didn't have your eyes on it."

She looked down at her badge for a quick second before focusing back on the road, watching out for both cars and pedestrians. Mammals of all sizes were either packing in for the night or heading out for Sahara Square’s world-renown nightlife. Nick’s tone was getting lighter and he let out a small chuckle.

"I remember one time we were out getting groceries and I wanted some candy. We didn't have enough money for it so he begged and pleaded with the… I think it was a porcupine cashier for a freebie. Of course we were denied it and we both walked out all sad. My sadness was genuine, but he was overplaying now that I look back at it. When we were out of sight he shook his tail in front of me and out popped like ten different brands of candy like a piñata. I was so happy and confused wondering how he did it, and when I looked up to him all he had was this big dumb grin on his face."

Nick chuckled a bit at the story he told as he gazed off at the buildings getting darker, any visibility from the sky being replaced by lighting-up streetlamps. He was quiet for a while after that, but Judy didn’t want to end the conversation there.

“So what happened to him? You said he left, do you know why?”

“Never knew why, and my mom never wanted to tell me. As I was getting older we just spent less and less time together. Mom kept saying he was working really hard to put food on the table, but a little while after my thirteenth birthday I never heard from him again. It took me a while but around my eighteenth I came to the conclusion that he was gone for good and confronted my mom about it. She just up and admitted it that he left. No divorce, nothing. Just gone. I guess she couldn’t keep hiding it from me.”

It was about ten minutes until 8:00pm, their clock-out time, as Judy pulled into the precinct's parking lot. She parked their car for the night and killed the engine.

"I’m so sorry about all that Nick," she told him as he exited the cruiser. He walked to the back of the car waiting for her to catch up. She quickly exited her side, walked up to him and gave him a big warm hug. "Thank you for telling me."

He wasn't expecting it, but he welcomed the hug and returned it by wrapping his arms around her and embracing her. "Yeah well, thanks for being there to listening to my sappy story."

He felt better after that, sharing a warm smile with her on the way home that night.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Judy decides to talk to Mrs. Wilde about Nick's father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive the long wait, I tend to be a busy man. I have some time off now however, so I should be able to finish this story during the next week or two.
> 
> The first chapter had some re-work done to it. Some grammatical corrections and sentence re-structuring. The casino sequence has been moved to a later chapter. Chapter two will continue as if it has yet to happen.

About a month had passed since Nick first opened up to Judy about his father's departure from his life. While there may have been no intention from Judy to continue talking about it, some of their idle conversations would occasionally drift back into discussing Nick's father. Interestingly enough it was mostly Nick who would drift it into that direction when reminded of another story involving his dad. He would talk about watching his dad's poker tricks when his dad had poker buddies over to play, or playing catch with a baseball that he "found". The conversations never grew much from those stories, but it did feed Judy's curiosity as to who he was and why he left. Figuring Nick would have little to no recollection as to why, she had an idea.

One day, Nick volunteered to do some overtime helping Clawhauser with paperwork, leaving Judy to a day by herself. Having nothing else to do around the apartment, she hopped on a train to Savannah Central to pay Mrs. Wilde a visit. Nick's stories were starting to be the only thing on her mind, so she figured it would be a good idea to get a more in-depth explanation as to why Mr. Wilde made the decision to leave. She was formulating how to get information on him in her head while walking to the townhouse Nick's mother lived in. When she arrived, she felt prepared and rang the doorbell.

"Hello? Well hello Judy!" Mrs. Wilde said with joyous surprise.

"Hi Mrs. Wilde! How are you doing today?"

"I'm doing well, thanks for asking! What brings you here? Is Nick with you?"

"Nick's working overtime today at the precinct and I have the day off. I thought it would be a great idea to swing by and hang out with you for a little while."

"Well what a pleasant surprise. Can I get you some something to drink, hon?" Mrs. Wilde asked as she welcomed Judy into her little townhouse. It's a small enough townhouse to house a small family, the entrance with a staircase on the right heading straight-forward, parallel to a hallway leading back to the kitchen, and a living room on the left-hand side of the front door.

"You have lemonade, Mrs. Wilde?"

"I do in fact! I'll go make some. And please, call me Linda!"

As Linda went to the kitchen, Judy took off her shoes and proceeded to look at some of the pictures next to the staircase. All of the pictures she had up on the wall were either of Nick as a child, Nick in uniform, Nick and his mom, or other family members Judy didn't recognize. As she was starting to mosey into the living room, one picture caught her glance of what looked like a young Nick hugging a much larger fox in the hallway Judy was currently standing in. Judy made a mental note of it, then sat down in one of the many comfy chairs in the living room.

Linda came back with two glasses, two straws, and a nice cold pitcher of lemonade, and the two proceeded to spend the next couple hours pleasantly chit-chatting about the random happenings in their lives.

They would talk about things ranging from each other's work to discussing the latest topic in the news, but Judy knew it was all idle chatter to ease into getting the dirt on Mr. Wilde. Judy started eyeing that photo on the wall while talking with Linda.

"Again I can't thank you enough for saving my little Nicky. You have no idea how happy I was to see him come home. And not just come home, but come home as an officer! It was so unbelievable I cried."

"Yeah, it was no problem." Judy replied quietly with a light smile on her face.

"I hadn't seen him for so long. He left to live on his own when he was only eighteen. I was so worried about him over the years that I almost gave up hope that he would ever come back to see me again. It was such a dark time for me. And then the two of you showed up, him being all dressed up as a policeman! I didn't even recognize him at first until he called me mom!"

"Yup! I remember that."

"It was a miracle, Judy. I'm telling you, you're an angel" she said happily as she was enjoying her lemonade. She was expecting Judy to say something in response, but she didn't. Linda was a little off-put by this, noticing Judy just quietly staring at her pictures on the wall. "Is everything okay? I hope you're not getting bored by me telling this to you for the millionth time."

"No! No, it's not that it's just...I'm curious about that picture on your wall there."

"Oh really? Which one?"

"That black and white one, with the two foxes hugging in the hallway."

Linda got up to look closer at which one she meant. When she had a better view of the picture, the memory caught up with her. "Oh...that one." Linda took it off the wall and handed it to Judy. "That's Nick's father, John. This was taken when he came home on Nick's thirteenth birthday." Linda sat back down with a neutral expression, now not wanting to look at Judy when they talked.

"Oh, okay. I only ask because Nick's been talking about his dad recently, I thought that might've been him. He even mentioned that he hadn't seen him since his thirteenth."

"Really? Nick's been talking about John? What a surprise" she replied quickly.

Judy could sense the sarcastic and harsh tone in Linda's voice, but she was too determined to finding out more about John to quit. "I'd understand if you don't want to talk much about him, but do you have a couple more pictures I could look at?"

"Sure." Linda went upstairs and brought back down a cardboard box labeled 'John'. "Everything's there." Judy sifted through everything. Most of it was photos, but also trinkets and personal records. She was really surprised at how much John in the photos looked just like Nick today, almost a mirror image of him playing with his kit self. Same build, height, just a few small differences in facial and fur pattern.

"Wow, Nick looks just like him. What was he like?"

After a few seconds of quietness, Linda took a deep breath and told her, "He was just another conman fox. Criminal, even. He called himself a businessman but we both knew he was involved in crime. I don't know who exactly, but I knew he had connections to some criminal organizations."

"Really?" Judy replied. She knew about Nick's mob history, but didn't know if Linda was aware and chose not to mention it. "I'm guessing he was more devoted to that than staying?"

"In a way. And even though he started being away from home for months to years on end, Nick still looked up to him like he was flawless every time they got together."

"Whole years? Was he just that busy?"

"Well, he was around a lot while Nick was growing up. Then around the time Nick was turning six, he started being away from home more until they only got together every couple of months or for birthdays and holidays. Then there was the prison sentence..."

"Prison sentence!?" Judy exclaimed as she was completely caught off guard from that bombshell. 

"Oh yeah. He served three and half years for assault. He got out right before Nick's thirteenth and showed up on the day that picture was taken. Every year Nick would wish to see his dad and that year it came true. John stayed for about a week, then left to never return. That was the last either of us ever heard from him."

"Nick never mentioned that. Sweet cheese and crackers, I'm so sorry."

"Oh it's not your fault, hon. Tell you the truth I was surprised he came back at all. All it did was re-ignite Nicky's vision of him being the greatest person in the world. After five more years of that, Nick finally hung up that vision and moved out on his own. Then I was alone. I still had relatives to comfort me when I needed it, but I couldn't stop hoping to hear from either of them again. Then my prayers were answered and you two showed up."

Judy was looking through the photos of John and Nick while Linda was talking. A couple were family photos, others were still shots of them playing in a park or their backyard. Some were them being silly together at birthday parties. One in particular was from Halloween with John as Frankenswine and Nick in an elephant costume. "I'm guessing Nick didn't take it too well when he talked to you about John leaving, huh?"

"Funny you mention that," she said in a lighter tone, "While I do think it hurt him when I told him John wasn't coming back...Nick took it with a smile." 

Linda was looking at the empty glass she had been holding for the past few minutes. "I'll be honest with you Judy, I don't really want to discuss this anymore."

"Oh of course! I'm so sorry!" Judy scrambled to put the photos back into the box. "I wasn't meaning to drag this out and make you uncomfortable!"

"It's okay, Judy. It just...brings back memories I don't want to remember. It's too much."

"Well then, why don't we talk about something else?" Judy asked with smiling eyes.

______

After a couple more hours of cheerier conversation, Mrs. Wilde thanked Judy for the company and the visit. Leaving Linda on a brighter note than leaving her depressed, Judy hurried home before Nick got off work, mostly satisfied but also a little down from the new information she had acquired from Linda.


End file.
